Carbon: Devil's Rose #8

Chapter 12: Roman Grant

I can feel Gabby's presence behind me, her eyes fiercely watching me while I make omelets for us. I send a wink to her, a blush lighting her cheeks up pink. She's so fucking cute. 

She stands behind me in my white t-shirt shirt and a pair of socks, her underwear hidden underneath her clothes. She spins around in my living room and examines my living space, smiling at the photos on top of my fireplace.

"Is this your family?" she speaks quietly, turning to me slightly.

"Yep, and my parents' dog, Rosco," I answer as I plate the omelets I made for us.

She slides across the floor to me, lays a kiss on my cheek as a thank you, and plops down at the island counter. She wiggles a little as she takes a bite, smiling up at me.

"You do know it's almost midnight and we're having omelets, right?" she acknowledges.

"Yeah," I reply with a shrug, "but who cares?"

"Not me," her answer comes out mumbled with the food she has sitting in her mouth.

This girl I swear.

We finish eating in silence, one of my hands resting on her thigh. Her eyes don't leave the side of my face. She's never even ashamed of her staring, and I don't mind it. 

With the scars on my face, I'm used to staring. The way I got them isn't fascinating at all. I was an idiot in college, ended up trying to jump over a fire while drunk, and half my body fell in it. The rest of my body is fine because the fire didn't get through my clothes (thanks to the ocean) but my face wasn't so lucky. 

Laser treatment helped for the most part, and the skin isn't bumpy or rough, but I have a few, three or four, lines running down the side of my face. I have gotten used to people looking or asking me about them. 

Since the scars are only because I was being a dumbass, I'm not totally offended by the staring, but it can be uncomfortable. Tank knows too. He has scars on his face too from a college incident - apparently, all Devil's Rose MC members have had fucking crazy college experiences - so we connected through that. 

The staring at my scars is what it is. It's the fetishization of them that gets to me the most because it was a traumatic experience. Seeing my face for the first time after the incident in a hospital mirror was one of the most overwhelming experiences of my life.

It took me a couple of years to finally feel confident with them. The staring bothers me less and less. With Gabby, I know it's different. She admires them as if they're beautiful rather than something that I just have to live with. 

She gazes at them and touches them so gently as if she's trying to heal them herself. It makes me feel even better about them because I know it's something more than her finding them sexy. 

Hopefully, she finds them a little sexy, that's a bonus for me, but she doesn't make it a big deal. They're another part of me that she enjoys.

Everything is different with her. I'm trying to figure out what that means. I haven't felt this way about someone before. I have been in love before, but it wasn't anything like this. I think I have to talk to someone about this because I don't know what to do. 

Slasher is the person I usually go to since we spend the most time together, and he knows the most about me, but he wouldn't be much help with this. I don't know about his past relationships, he doesn't talk about them much, so I don't think he's the person I can go to. 

If anyone is, it's anyone who has an Old Lady. The last time I had a deep discussion with Whiskey, Bullet, Alpha, and Poison, I kind of went off on them, so they aren't my best option either. My choices are down to Reaper, Tank, and Bear.